Thinking Small Led ASU to Better Fuel Cells

After UNLV, my university-hopping trip through the Southwest took me to Arizona State University (ASU). My principle reason for stopping at ASU was to visit with Professor Jonathan Posner, who went to school with me about a thousand years ago at UC Irvine.

Professor Posner and his colleagues developed a mechanism to actively pump water away from the fuel cell cathode. In a recent paper on the subject, Posner and his co-authors say “removal of liquid water with a low power, robust, active method should allow PEMFCs to operate in regimes otherwise inaccessible due to flooding.” Not only did they improve performance, but they also extended the effective PEMFC operating range to lower temperatures.

With their well-developed expertise in small-scale fluid flow, ASU’s Micro/Nanofluidics Laboratory is nicely positioned to make an impact in energy generation and other allied industries. Professor Posner is a researcher worth keeping your eye on.

It won't be too much longer and hardware design, as we used to know it, will be remembered alongside the slide rule and the Karnaugh map. You will need to move beyond those familiar bits and bytes into the new world of software centric design.

People who want to take advantage of solar energy in their homes no longer need to install a bolt-on solar-panel system atop their houses -- they can integrate solar-energy-harvesting shingles directing into an existing or new roof instead.

Kaspersky Labs indicated at its February meeting that cyber attacks are far more sophisticated than previous thought. It turns out even air-gapping (disconnecting computers from the Internet to protect against cyber intrusion) isn’t a foolproof way to avoid getting hacked. And Kaspersky implied the NSA is the smartest attacker.

Focus on Fundamentals consists of 45-minute on-line classes that cover a host of technologies. You learn without leaving the comfort of your desk. All classes are taught by subject-matter experts and all are archived. So if you can't attend live, attend at your convenience.